The Biennial Blog

Liverpool Biennial volunteer Anne Schottle reflects on her experiences inside the Scandinavian Hotel / Europleasure building on the corner of Duke and Great George Street.

Every time I invigilate at the Scandinavien Hotel / Europleasure Building, I feel very moved listening to the wonderful voice of the singer towards the end of the film from Alfredo Jaar. It is such a sad incident that happened  just in the nineties - it makes me cry, and sometimes I see people coming out wiping their tears away, deep in thoughts.  On the other hand you have circus music melting in – calling for a revolution.  Across the street from “The Whitehouse” where Banksy left a rat … I like this place.

A Biennial view of The Innovasion alternate reality game that left Liverpool residents questioning the control over their creativity…

The Innovasion took place on Saturday 9th October throughout the city of Liverpool. A collaboration between Liverpool Biennial and Hope Street Ltd, the alternate reality game led groups of gamers around 2010 exhibitions in order save the cities creativity from the clutches of an evil group art group named Creative Control.

The game was expertly run by renowned games masters Karsten Dombrowski and Larson Kasper and directed by Hilary Westlake, and featured superb theatrical performances from Hope Street apprentices posing as Creative Control agents and artists.

Games masters Larson and Karsten at work with Hope Street accomplices:

The game began online through Facebook, Twitter and blog campaigns representing the good guys (Wolf Crew, Stop Little Red Riding Hood) and Creative Control (the creativity pinching bad guys). Innovasion became ‘real’ on Saturday morning, where groups met at separate city locations and received clues to dig out information about Creative Control‘s mission rallies and group events.

A group start the game at the Biennial Visitor Centre after a receiving their opening phone call clue:

At 2.30pm the fictitious Creative Control agents drew a large crowd outside Lime Street Station to spread propaganda and sign up new artists:

By 3.30pm we had witnessed a game kidnapping on 106 Wood Street outside Raymond Pettibon’s Touched 2010 garage that had onlookers confused and rather worried (see video below). Innovasion made full use of Touched venues and aimed to interact players with art, fusing their clues to exhibitions and artworks. The game to a conclusion at an evening event at The Static Gallery on Roscoe Lane, where the tenacious Wolf Crew infiltrated Creative Control‘s video broadcast and transferred the creative power back to the people of Liverpool.

Many many individuals contributed to an exciting and unpredictable day. Massive thanks go to the players, who stuck with the game despite one or two teething problems in the afternoon. We’d also like to thank the talented Hope Street apprentices who pushed the game on throughout the day and provided high quality theatrical performances alongside theatrical director Hilary Westlake, who did a superb job.

Invaluable Hope Street helpers worked through the night to prepare for the game alongside games masters Karsten and Larson, who we thank for their outstanding work pre and during the game. We mean this in the best way possible, you are both mad geniuses.

For both ourselves and Hope Street, The Innovasion was a really interesting project to work on as it was our very first gaming event. Arts and gaming isn’t always thought of in the same bracket, but we were really pleased to see players visiting and interacting with new art at Touched 2010 venues.

You can view a video overview of The Innovasion below and read reviews of the game from players Mycroft Milverton and Matthew Taylor.

Until next time…

Liverpool Biennial 2010, 18 September – 28 November 2010, presents the Official Liverpool Biennial Car 2010, designed and driven by artist Daisy Delaney. The car will be turning up outside all the glamorous and significant visual arts events in Liverpool, London and Europe during the Biennial.

“Daisy Delaney works in a way that forces us to reconsider everyday actions and their underlying meaning.” – Neville Brody

Daisy Delaney bought the imported car and set about designing the modifications, including performance enhancements, new paintwork, rear spoiler, and graphics in the colours of the 2010 Biennial including the wolf image designed by Mexican artist Carlos Amorales for the Touched marketing campaign.

The car is a special import from Japan, a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV GSR, usually known as an Evo.

The modified car was designed by Daisy Delaney in the style of an imported, illegal street-racer, a drifting car, as seen in the Fast and Furious films. The car is sponsored by Liverpool Biennial and incorporates the logos of the key venues in the Touched exhibition: Tate Liverpool, FACT, the Bluecoat, A Foundation and Open Eye Gallery.

This is the second car that Daisy Delaney has been commissioned to produce for Liverpool Biennial, the first was created for Made Up in 2008.  Liverpool Biennial’s model was the most successful Evo, winning the World Rally Championship Constructors Championship for Mitsubishi in 1998. It was driven by Finnish Rally driver Tommi Mäkinen, aka “The Flying Finn”, who won the Drivers World Rally Championship in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.

Cars and art:

The evolution of the car as a work of art can be traced back to 1924, when Ukrainian born artist Sonia Delaunay designed the livery of a Bugatti T35. Delaunay continued to work with cars including a Citroën B12 and the interior of a Talbot. In 1929 she designed fabric with paintings of a Bugatti Type 43 Grand Sport and her designs appeared on the front cover of Vogue in 1925. In1967 Delaunay was commissioned to design the paintwork on a Matra 530A.

The history of art cars continued with the production of the Martini Racing Porsche ‘Hippie’ which came second in the legendary endurance motor race, the Le Mans 24hrs.

In 1975, the artist Alexander Calder designed the livery of the first car of the BMW Art Car Project, which continues to this day, and includes cars designed by Andy Warhol and Jenny Holzer among others.

In 1996, a Lamborghini Diablo SV-R was designed by French artist Georges Wolinski.

Sean Robertson, a model for The Naked Corner, tells about his experience in Liverpool, the reactions, and his exploration of the Biennial.

Up to Liverpool for a 3 day Biennial blast, giving me plenty of time to take in the diverse nature of Britain’s biggest contemporary arts festival.  

Before my Thursday session in Daniel Knorr’s The Naked Corner, I went to the Europleasure building for Alfredo Jaar’s We wish to inform you that we didn’t know an emotional, thought provoking piece that left me not so much angry as disappointed at the ignorance of the “civilised” world.  Then next door for Cristina Lucas’ Touch and Go, which is supposed to convey messages of the fragility of the capitalist system which passes through and leaves decaying remnants – yes it did, but it was also the perfect fun antidote to the Jaar installation.

I was joined by my twitter friend Scott (@merseytart) and stripped to our pants we took up residence in the window.  Our corporate messages were “A diamond is forever” (Scott) and “Just do it” (me).  Performing with someone else was a very different experience to the other week, as the audience are not focusing solely on you and you can observe the interaction between viewer and model whilst occupying the same space.  The most surreal moment was a woman down on her luck, albeit numbed by the effects of the can of special brew, who crossed from the other side of the road and licked a smiley face onto the window in front of us…

Friday morning came and I was alone, the message I had chosen was “Join the debate” and this brought out another aspect of the viewing public, whereas the earlier messages had simply been read, the audience took this one as an instruction, and I had countless people knocking on the window asking “what debate?” or “what are we debating?”  Although the project is about the ownership of language, I put my own spin on this and invited the audience to debate about whatever they wanted, including two elderly ladies who starting a good natured argument about whether it was art, so I told them, there you go, you’re having your debate…

Friday afternoon I took in Laura Belém’s The Temple of a Thousand Bells a most beautiful piece and in a classically perfect setting, followed by Danica Dakic’s Grand Organ, another uplifting piece which brought together the amazing organ of St George’s Hall, with the building’s other role as court of justice.  The time period of the Hall’s conception was also inferred with the children looking like workhouse kids one minute and gentrified scholars the next.

On to Saturday and with no-one else taking part, I had a split shift from 11am to 1pm and then from 2pm to 4pm.  This gave me time for a quick look around the Biennial installations in the Bluecoat before heading to Renshaw Street.  My chosen message for Saturday was “Capitalist Tool” which I felt probably sums up the objectivity of standing in the window, those portals for the manufacturers and retailers to prise your hard earned, or ill gotten, gains out of your pockets.  Midday I met with my friend and fellow plinther (Gormley‘s One and Other) Jensen Wilder who bought me lunch, a delightful mug of “scousers’ breakfast” tea and brought me up to date with what was going on with his life.   Then it was a quick tour of the upper floor of the old Rapid building, before my second performance of the day, which meant I was there when the 3:30 tour came around, which was informative and gave me a deeper insight into what I was actually doing!

Once dressed, it was off to St Luke’s church where I met some Spanish tourists who recognised me from earlier and wanted a clothed picture of me too, then to FACT for a warming mug of chocolate, and there I meet some ladies who asked “did we see you naked earlier?”  Well at least people noticed what my face looked like!

A fast train to London, and onto the disorganised chaos that is public transport in the capital on a weekend.  London is fun, but my heart was lagging 200 miles behind me as I descended into the Nether World of Hades, or the Northern Line as London Underground prefer to call it..

Katie Grace McGowan is a model for Daniel Knorr’s The Naked Corner.  Below are her views on the piece.

Curator Lorenzo Fusi’s texts, “Speaking the Naked Truth” and his writing in the Touched exhibition catalogue succinctly address the themes of Daniel Knorr’s The Naked Corner: copyright and branding politics, the public forum as an arena for protest against the corporatization of language and the body, etc. It is, however, conspicuously missing from the installation. Both deliberate and inadvertent viewers are given similar entrée into the piece, which is simultaneously confounding and refreshing.

The choice not to include didactics is an assertive one. But it is too evasive?  Would the viewer be more likely to get beyond the nudity (sic) if he or she were given some sort of information about the slogans or the piece at large? Would a text help contextualize the work or take away the disorienting joy of happening upon a spectacle on the street? By bypassing wall text, the artist and curator are able to offer the piece to an unprimed audience. But would the audience take more away with some priming? The choice is certainly a fraught one.

In the three weeks or so I’ve served daily shifts in the window on Renshaw Street, reactions have run the spectrum, often clustering on the extremes of said spectrum.  Typical reactions to me, a lone female; are smiles, waves, laughter as people realize I am not a mannequin, thumbs up, thorough examinations, and sexual commentary. There is lots of laughter, some friendly some not, most nervous. Less common, but more memorable, reactions include calling me a “fu*king whore/slut/bitch,” simulated masturbation, men exposing themselves (two incidents on my watch) and pubescent girls telling me I am fat and flat chested. These reactions indicate a surprising discomfort with something that seems so innocuous—a person wearing generic cotton underclothes in a public place–rather than a reaction to the truly offensive fact that corporations are able to co-opt and buy our language.

Here it may also be worthwhile to note the differences I’ve noticed when performing the role of an object, an inert canvas onto which often bewildering statements are painted, versus a subject, an interactive, usually friendly, human who engages passersby in some small way. In the case of the prior, the abuse can be harsh. The only time it has been harsher is when the performer has stood directly in the window meeting the eyes of each spectator. In these cases, there have been very angry reactions several times. When the gaze of the female object looks back upon the viewer, the act becomes too assertive.

Often while in the window I have thought of the momentous Marina Abramović performance, Rhythm 0 (1974). In this piece the artist availed herself to her audience to do as they please. The audience was sometimes very respectful and many times not. The piece took place in a gallery setting.  The audience was a self-selected art viewing audience, but the piece still ended with cruelty. As a performing object in a vulnerable state, in a public space, Naked Corner has taught me how truly afraid I would be to do something like Rhythm 0 in the actual public sphere. Lack off accountability allows some people an inflated sense of agency. Similar to the way people will comment viciously on anonymous blogs or websites, the veil of anonymity removes inhibition and in the extreme case, humanity.

As an object or performer–depending on the day–within the installation, the experience has been an informative one. Perception is changed, perhaps deepened, with each hour in the fishbowl. My senses drown.  Traces of eroticism, impressionistic thoughts, judgments, desire for connection, they come and go. The cold autumn light shines on my blue flesh as spectators peer into my tank, glad they are on the outside, able to return to the safe side of the everyday—where a corporate slogan is just that.

This guest blog is written by Doug Herbert, a Liverpool Biennial Volunteer Information Assistant as well as model for Daniel Knorr’s The Naked Corner.  These are his personal perspectives on his work with the Biennial so far.

Have you ever been told off by your housemates’ girlfriend or boyfriend, (although this is much less likely) for walking around the house in your underwear? Me too, it’s annoying isn’t it. Sometimes it’s all you want to do to wander around the house picking things up and putting them back down in a slightly different position all day wearing nothing but your pants.  It’s comforting. If it can be ruined by someone else’s lover then the world really has gone to pot. Forget the recession, the coalition government, the fact Wayne Rooney seems to have forgotten which feet to put his boots on and the way the new series of the Inbetweeners has been utterly disappointing, if a man cannot walk around his own home in his pants how can any of us have any hope? Amazingly, we can and here’s how;

On Saturday morning I spent three hours walking around in my underwear without hearing a single complaint. I got photographed, thumbs upped and altogether respected and congratulated for my behaviour, (and only slightly mocked) but no complaints, a refreshing change. Who’d have thought it? What is unacceptable in ones own home is wholly acceptable in a shop window on a busy street in Liverpool and it’s all thanks to Daniel Knorr and his Naked Corner, a new piece commissioned for the Liverpool Biennial.  If you too want the freedom to just wear underwear (and an advertising slogan) in a shop window just drop in to the old Rapid building and volunteer, it’s a great experience.

It’s worth noting there is more to volunteering than the chance to wear your pants in public without anyone telling you it’s bad etiquette at the dinner table mind you. If like me you find art exhibitions to inspire only the urge for a long sit down and some hard liquor (as opposed to the desire to go out and create something truly unique), it’s likely that, like me, you find art hard to understand. I’ve found however, that like most things art can be understood by taking a little time to consider it. Like how as a child you’d wonder why your elder brother Edward kept beating you up and after you sat down and thought about it you realised it was because he was a complete idiot. Art is similar.

As a volunteer you get the opportunity to really connect with the artwork, to let it sink in and really appreciate it. Take for instance Ryan Trecartins’ video installation Trill-ogy Comp, located in the basement of Rapid. On my first visit it made me want to run for the hills, or at least go back to bed and hold my pillow. Having spent a few mornings down there I now really like the work and kind of understand it….I think.

The time spent with the work helps, but also communicating with other volunteers and visitors helps. Hearing their ideas and interpretations is interesting and insightful, and if you all don’t understand it at least you have company for that drink you’ll be craving. Yeah, it’s safe to say volunteering is a great way to experience the Biennial, not just for people who know anything about art but for those of us who don’t have a clue and want to learn something. I used to resemble a ginger deer in the headlights when facing a contemporary art installation, but now? Well, I still look like a ginger deer in the headlights, but they gave me a little ticket to wear around my neck which reads “Volunteer” and a little badge telling people to “Ask me about the Biennial”. So with any luck by November 28^th this well accessorised deer will be able to provide some pretty useful comments on some very intriguing work.

Like Twitter and Facebook, FourSquare is a social network.  However, it links person to place in a much more userfriendly way. FourSquare has a big USA following (one of the fastest growing social networks), and it is emerging into the UK.  Designed for smartphones, FourSquare uses GPS to actually locate users, allowing them to update their status to their location (example: In Tate Liverpool).  Once updated, the person can choose to leave a tip to other people who might go to that place (example: Go to the Touched exhibit!)

Liverpool Biennial has always prided itself on its sense of Place. (Our motto is “Engaging Art, People, and Place”)  Because the nature of the festival involves people moving around to each of the venues and public realm locations, FourSquare will be a useful tool for not only helping people find their way, but to also see how many people visit certain places, where they go next, and what feedback they leave.

We have created suggested trails out of the locations of our artwork and encourage people to visit all the points on the trail.  The prize for leaving a tip for three different locations of art works will be a free drink provided by Leaf Tea Shop in the Visitor Centre. Just tell our Visitor Centre staff that you have left the tips.

Suggested Trails:

Inner City Trail – Starting at Lime Street Station, on the Futurist Cinema Emese Benczùr,  multiple artists in the Bluecoat, large mural at 24 Fleet Street Tala Madani,  in the Open Eye Gallery Lars Laumann, in a garage on Wood St Raymond Pettibon, multiple artists in FACT, multiple artists in 52 Renshaw Street, End: Visitor Centre (52 Renshaw Street).

Duke Street Trail – Starting in the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral – Danica Dakic, in the Oratory – Laura Belém, in the Black-E – Kris Martin, in and on the Scandinavian hotel/Europleasure building – Will Kwan, Alfredo Jaar and Cristina Lucas, between 84-86 Duke Street – Do Ho Suh, multiple artists in 52 Renshaw Street, End: Visitor Centre (52 Renshaw Street).

Outer City Trail - Starting at Mann Island Development – middle building atrium – Hector Zamora, various artists in Tate Liverpool, in A Foundation – Sachiko Abe and Antti Laitinen, multiple artists in 52 Renshaw Street, End: Visitor Centre (52 Renshaw Street).

FAQs:

• What is FourSquare?
  • Social network that uses GPS locationing.  You can get a free account here.
• I don’t use FourSquare but I visited these venues…can I get something free?
  • No, the competition is only open to FourSquare users as they need to also leave online “tips.”  Thank you for visiting everything, but there is no competition for offline trails.
• Where is the Biennial FourSquare page?
  • http://foursquare.com/user/biennial
• Is there a deadline for the competition?
  • The end of festival is the deadline (28 November)
• I don’t have a smartphone but use FourSquare.  Can I still compete?
  • Yes.  If you have a phone that can access the web, go to this address.  Likewise, if you’re carrying around a laptop that is connected to the internet, you can access your foursquare page via the same link as above.
• Are there any other rules?
  • Only applies to Touched artworks (not CityStates, SQUAT, the Cooperative, John Moores Painting Prize or Bloomberg New Contemporaries).  The final stop on the trail must be the Visitor Centre (so you can pick up your drink, obviously!)
• I have already left tips at a certain location, can I get another drink if I leave more?
  • No, but if you leave tips at a new venue, you can get another free drink
• I don’t like this, I want to complain! OR  I like this, I want to commend!
  • Please speak to Mary (mary@biennial.com) who will handle your complaint/praise.

There are many events going on this weekend, so make the most of your time in Liverpool City Centre!  Most of these events are FREE but booking may be required.  Details below.

15 – 21 October:

Deimantas Narkevicius – Ausgetraumt – Film screening at FACT.  A small group of young Lithuanian boys who have just started a band, are interspersed with shots of their wintertime surroundings in Vilnius. Pop or rock music has never been fully developed in Lithuania as a means of self expression, and no one Lithuanian pop musician has reached international acclaim. Narkevicius films these young idealists and their international ambitions, asking them questions about their vision of the future, their reflections on the political situation and the generally unsatisfying cultural environment.

15 October:

Shang-Pool Arcadia – A collaborative research project between Shanghai and Liverpool John Moores Universities. Using virtual and mixed realities, it explores the notion of the idyll and green spaces within the city as places of recreation, contemplation, nourishment and meeting places. The research will also seek to align itself with Liverpool Biennial’s projects in areas of urban regeneration in Merseyside and consider similar projects in Shanghai. Contact the Bluecoat for more details.

16 – 17 October:

Screenings of Karl-Heinz Klopf’s new film – They – Saturday 12-5pm on the hour, Sunday 12-3pm on the hour.  Enjoy Karl-Heinz’s journeys in North Liverpool – what makes a community?  FREE no booking required – in the Contemporary Urban Centre

Chapter and Verse Literature Festival – Touched Weekender – The Bluecoat’s annual Chapter & Verse literature festival features talks, readings, workshops and much more. This year it responds to the Biennial theme with a ‘Touched Weekender’, including a range of writers who revivify mind, body and soul. Much of the programme goes beyond conventional ways to experience literature, the power of the word to touch being experienced for instance through music performance, cabaret, songwriting, political commentary and debate.

Spray Paint Graphic Wolves on your Stuff - Like Carlos Amorales’s graphic wolves? Want one on your shirt/bag/skateboard/anything?  Come to the Visitor Centre every Saturday and Sunday between noon and 4pm to stencil whatever you want for only £2 a person.  We’ll provide fabric safe spray paint (red, black, and white) and the stencils. All you have to bring in is whatever you want a wolf head on!  Any questions – email mary@biennial.com

16 October:

Art Mediator Tours | Hannah Pierce – 3:30 pm – starting point: Liverpool Biennial Visitor Centre.  Click to book FREE tickets.  Art Mediator tours are opportunities to see selected art works on a tour led by a trained art mediator. Each tour will reflect the personality and interests of the mediator. Hannah Pierce is a Liverpool based artist whose work focuses primarily on the establishing and developing dialogue and exchange between temporary communities.  The Re:thinking Trade tour considers commissions in the 52 Renshaw Street Visitor Centre that explore alternative notions of exchange and negotiate the role of the artwork and audience, playfully applying these techniques to a traditional guided tour and discussion.

Allan Kaprow’s Happenings – Performance Saturday 16 October  4-6pm in the Visitor Centre.  No booking required. Weekly performances during Liverpool Biennial 2010 (18 Sept – 28 Nov) where students from Cátedra Arte De Conducta and Tania Bruguera will reinvent Allan Kaprow‘s Happenings.  For up-to-date information, join the Facebook group

17 October:

Brian Catling – Cyclops – Book a free ticket at the Bluecoat. Brian Catling will respond to the Touched theme by testing the boundary between curiosity and repulsion through the manifestation of his performance persona Cyclops. Invited to overcome the uncertainties of interacting with this one-eyed spectre, audiences may observe the Cyclops roaming the streets of Liverpool pursued by the paparazzi, or peer from the balcony into his zoo-like enclosure at the Bluecoat.

Art Mediator Tours | Neil Winterburn – 3:30 pm – starting point: Liverpool Biennial Visitor Centre.  Click to book FREE tickets.  Art Mediator tours are opportunities to see selected art works, focusing on those in 52 Renshaw Street, on a tour led by a trained art mediator. Each tour will reflect the personality and interests of the mediator.  Neil Winterburn is an artist who works with people to construct games, systems, and activities that manifest ideas, memories and emotions, in social spaces.  The Open Eyed Meditation Tour will combine traditional aspects of gallery tours, with discussions and a series of playful guided meditations, that help us look at the exhibition differently.

EarlySundays Tour with Jonathon Hering and aPAtT – 10:30 – starting point: Liverpool Biennial Visitor Centre.  Click to book FREE tickets. Jonathan Hering and aPAtT, Live music composers and performers will be providing a live, specially-composed soundtrack/ interpretation for their Touched tour. Using music, recordings, acting, projection, visual art and intervention, these performances are not to be repeated, and are unlike any previous a.P.A.t.T. shows.

There are many events going on this weekend, so make the most of your time in Liverpool City Centre!  Most of these events are FREE but booking may be required.  Details below.

8 – 14 October:
Aurélien Froment – Pulmo Marina – Short film screening with the film A Town Called Panic (dir. Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar).  Book through FACT

8 and 9 October:
Screenings of Karl-Heinz Klopf’s new film – They – Saturday 12-5pm on the hour, Sunday 12-3pm on the hour.  Enjoy Karl-Heinz’s journeys in North Liverpool – what makes a community?  FREE no booking required – in the Contemporary Urban Centre

9 and 10 October:
Wolf Stenciling in the Visitor Centre – Like Carlos Amorales’s graphic wolves?  Want one on your shirt/bag/anything?  Come to the Visitor Centre on Saturday and Sunday to stencil whatever you want for only £2 a person.  We’ll provide fabric safe spraypaint and the stencils.

9 October
Curator’s Exhibition Tour – the Bluecoat’s Sara-Jayne Parsons – A FREE tour around the Bluecoat with the head curator, Sara-Jayne Parsons.  Get the inside story on all of the Bluecoat’s exhibitions.  For tickets, contact the Bluecoat
The Innovasion – Alternate Reality Game – Get immersed in a new world through this Live Action Role Play (LARP) Game.  Strange things are happening at the Biennial – and you (or a group) can be part of it!  Book online, or buy a ticket at the Visitor Centre before 9am Saturday morning.  You will be given further instructions and the game begins!
Liverpool Live Event – Bed-In at the Bluecoat - Saturday would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday and 9 December is thirty years since his assassination. The Bluecoat marks these anniversaries by recreating John and Yoko’s famous 1969 peace protest. Each day a bed in our Hub will host a new action by performers, artists and others – selected from an open call – for a better world. FREE no booking required.
Art Mediator Tours | Neil Winterburn – Neil Winterburn is an artist who works with people to construct games, systems, and activities that manifest ideas, memories and emotions, in social spaces.  The Open Eyed Meditation Tour will combine traditional aspects of gallery tours, with discussions and a series of playful guided meditations, that help us look at the exhibition differently. FREE but booking is essential

10 October:
EarlySundays Tour with Eleanor Rees – Eleanor Rees, writer and poet, will take you on a take a poetic experience as she responds to the theme and exhibition of Touched.  FREE but booking is essential
Art Mediator Tours | Sophie Bower- Art Mediator tours are opportunities to see selected art works, focussing on 52 Renshaw Street on a tour led by a trained art mediator. Each tour will reflect the personality and interests of the mediator.  FREE but booking is essential

Australian artist Anne Wilson is a resident at Liverpool Biennial 2010. In her first artist short blog she talks about the city and the public opening of her studio at Static Gallery this week…

“Liverpool feels like a place I know – the lyrical dialect and the way people move seems familiar. I know my ancestors came from Galway, Scotland and England where 1800’s architectural examples mirror those in Melbourne.

Many buildings from late 1800’s still exist in Melbourne, however there are few memorials to the events that occurred within our indigenous culture in the century prior, which creates a mental gap. Even though Liverpool is a city in a state of flux the history of buildings tell a story that helps to fill that space about an earlier history.

I have 6 weeks left of my residency and during this time I will be doing a project based on the Liverpool Philarmonic Orchestra performances and opening up my studio at Static Gallery with a site- specific silent video work.”

Studio opening times and dates:

Thursday 7, Friday 8 and Saturday 9 October
from 11am – 6pm
Static Gallery,
23 Roscoe Lane
Liverpool

Where to find Anne's studio at Static Gallery

Mist, 2010

Mist was shot from my apartment during the Matthew Street festival the blurred image is choreography of bodies in unified passion. Anne Wilson

Artist bio, from Anne’s website:

Anne studied painting as a mature-age student after a career in dance.  Her practice is informed by theatre, cinema and live performance and is realized between disciplines—photography, video, painting, sound installation and performance.

Her work has been shown at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Athens Film Festival, The Media Arts Asia Pacific Biennale in Singapore, Australian Centre for Photography, Centre for Photography in Melbourne, at the International Urban Screens Festival in Melbourne and is held in the Art Bank of Australia, Australian Video Art Archive, Australian Centre for the Moving Image and private collections.

She is represented by Arc1 Gallery in Melbourne. Her film ‘In Your Own Time’ was selected for Internet Movie Database (IMDb).  She has been awarded Australia Council for the Arts residencies at Banff, Canada and Liverpool, UK, Nuoro Film Festival Workshop Residency, Italy, and Can Serrat Artists and Writer’s residency in Barcelona. She holds a PhD from Monash University Faculty of Art and Design.

In May 2010 Anne received an Australia Council Grant to promote her practice while in the UK. In 2010 Anne will be undertaking an Australian Council for the Arts residency in Liverpool during the Biennial.

Sean Robertson is one of the models for Daniel Knorr’s The Naked Corner, an installation of nearly-nude models with branded slogans written on them that can be seen from Renshaw street.  He writes about his experiences and the reactions he’s received.

The requirement to wear plain, unbranded underwear for my spell in Daniel Knorr’s Naked Corner, caused a dilemma, which lead to me ironing a pair of boxers for the very first time!  Well it was a Sunday, so I had to look my best.

After choosing a slogan, “Vorsprung Durch Technic”,  I was painted up and like a thousand mannequins before me taken to my shop window.  Following a quick chat with the previous performer, I was left to watch the comings and goings on Renshaw Street, and for the comers and goers to watch me of course.

I’ve stood alone, and naked, on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth (One & Other, Antony Gormley 2009) but this felt very different, being on street level meant I was very close to the audience, and most of those didn’t know I was going to be there until they were 6 feet away.

The reactions were mixed: children pointing; middle-aged Germans who read the slogan and took it all very seriously; families who thought it all a laugh; or families where the father looked back for a little too long…; some people smiled, and some ignored the whole thing; a woman stopped her car, took a photo and shouted “you’ve made my day”;  a war veteran gave me a thumbs-up; a group of teenagers, stood and studied, but declined the invitation to take part; girls headed into town for a drink;  lads heading home with their shopping.

At 6pm, my time was up, time to leave the window empty for the night; time to get dressed and walk into the street; time to become just another face in the crowd.  But time goes quickly and I’ll be back “Be seeing you”

Liverpool Biennial: Touched 2010, The Bluecoat by Les Roberts

Les has won a tour with Touched in the Public Realm curator Lorenzo Fusi.  For more information about Liverpool Biennial’s Competitions, please email competitions@biennial.com

Touching from a Distance – Liverpool Biennial 2010

“That’s the problem with art, you can’t touch it.”

-overheard in 52 Renshaw Street.

Some part of the last three weekends I’ve spent taking in different sites across the Biennial. Certain sites have drawn me back, others left me satisfied with one visit. I still have so much to see and very glad I still have most of the next two months to take as much of it as I can.

Of all the Biennial works I’ve seen, the exhibition at Tate provoked the strongest reaction through a desire to interact with art in a physical way. The tactile qualities of so many pieces invited, even begged me, to reach out and touch them and feel their materials and construction. To test how soft or hard the objects in Magdalena Abakanowitz’s Embryology are; to let my hand hover over the flames of Jamie Isenstein’s Empire of Fire and feel their heat; to uncork the vessels of Nina Canell’s On Thirst and let the water stream to the floor.

The only piece which fulfilled this desire of interaction was Franz West’s Smears, which actively invited the viewer to sit and touch what looked like a giant strand of toothpaste squeezed out into a gallery and hardened.

I don’t know what exactly brought out this impulse to behave like a small child and step outside the boundaries laid down, visibly or not, around the works, but oberserving my reactions to this desire its denial was one of the more heightened engagements with art I’ve had in a long time.

And in every gallery is at least one parent saying to a child ‘no, you mustn’t touch’.

Potentially the greatest gift of the Biennial to Liverpool is the opening up of spaces not normally accessible to the public and the chance to interact both with the art and the locations themselves. There’s so much more to say about repurposed spaces like the Europleasure Interntational/Scandinavian Hotel and the former Rapid building on Renshaw Street. The acts of middle-aged vandalism set to a whimsical Beatles-inspired score in Cristina Lucas’ Touch and Go. The political impulses behind Alfredo Jaar’s The Marx Lounge installation-cum-reading room and his film collaboration We Wish to Inform You that We Didn’t Know, a powerful document about the Rwandan genocide and the West’s failure to respond. The forest of ribbons that makes up the labyrinthine Ndize by Nicholas Hlobo, inviting you to get lost in a tangle of colour, not knowing where any path will lead and happy to be embraced by this maze.

You might not always be able to touch art, but without a doubt art can touch you.

Rachel has won a tour with Touched in the Public Realm curator Lorenzo Fusi.  For more information about Liverpool Biennial’s Competitions, please email competitions@biennial.com

One of the projects included in this year’s Liverpool Biennial, a performance-based piece created by Romanian artist Daniel Knorr, bears the suggestive title of The Naked Corner. The work references the expression “naked truth” (that is to say the plain truth) and associates it with the notion of the speakers’ corner, a public forum or arena where open discussion and debate take place.

Daniel Knorr has been long interested in the implicit contradiction that characterizes copyright legislation when this applies to the use of idiomatic sentences registered for branding and marketing specific products or ‘experiences’. The association between a given selection of words and a particular good is now so rooted in our brains, that one cannot but think of McDonalds when (for instance) the phrase “I’m loving it” is said. Although the majority of these commercial slogans derive from colloquial ways of saying things and do not precisely correspond to an act of creation but rather appropriation, these sentences now officially belong to companies and cannot be publicly used in any realm that suggests a commercial exchange or promotion.

By presenting these slogans in a former shop (namely inside a window display overlooking Renshaw Street), the artist symbolically infringes copyright laws to set language free, but most importantly rescues the use of a communal good from private property. As Apple maintains, he invites us to “think different”. The speculation performed at our expense is great (since inevitably a certain concatenation of words evokes immediately a product). The gains of this process lie solidly in the hands of corporate business. But what does it leave us with? A semantically manipulated collective subconscious, I guess.

Besides inviting the viewer to rethink the actual meaning, intellectual property and origin of these phrases, Knorr highlights the importance of keeping alive the free association that exists between words and ideas.

He also naturally points the finger at the specific connotations that a given sentence acquires when it is written on someone’s bare skin. The wording of these slogans when painted on the body of a man or a woman, a black or white person, a youth or an elder, often unmasks prejudices, malevolent thinking, phobias and discrimination. Knorr’s project demonstrates (if so was needed) that language is never harmless: it is a marvelous tool, but also a very powerful weapon.

The “basic truth” is that language and meaning are systematically ‘stolen’ from the public domain, conditioned and instrumentally reinserted in to society with a new purpose that serves specific interests: this process happens everyday and we hardly take notice.

I, for one, would like to be able to use sentences like Empowering People or Connecting People without referencing mobile phones or computer companies, and (at the same time) decide for myself what is really the best a man can get.

Because I’m worth it!